Careers
A year in review: what I learned from my trip to Alaska
If this past year has taught me anything, it is that big dreams are definitely worth chasing–but it is the unexpected twists and turns that make everything worth it.
According to tourism sites, if you visit Alaska for at least 3 days during the winter, there is a 90% chance you’ll see the Northern Lights.
Eager to cross a major item off of our bucket list, my friends and I trusted this evidence and booked a spur-of-the-moment, week-long trip to Fairbanks, AK in December of 2021. Our time in Fairbanks was marked with gorgeous views, boiling hot springs, and all sorts of ice adventures. We visited Mount Denali and its surrounding National Park and hiked some beautiful trails. During the short-lived daylight hours, we’d explore the frozen tundra of Central Alaska and the attractions Fairbanks had to offer. Every night, we’d stay out as late as we could manage driving to the best scenic viewpoints in search of the Northern Lights. While we didn’t worry about not seeing the Lights after the first few days of our trip, we decided to ramp up our efforts during the latter half. Scanning aurora maps, religiously studying kP indexes, and even learning to decipher complex meteorological maps, however, made our pursuit no less futile. During our entire 7 night stay, we saw no more than the faintest glow of lightning behind an expansive cloud cover.
Ultimately, we returned from Alaska without ever seeing the Northern Lights–and while I was dejected at first, I’ve come to terms with the significance of our trip.
Before we get to that, let’s back up a bit.
My name is Varun. Last year, I wrote a piece for Bioeconomy.XYZ reflecting on my time as an undergraduate at UChicago. Go ahead and check it out if you haven’t already!
Right after graduating, I moved to New Jersey to work full-time as a Software Engineer for a large health tech/insurance tech company. As a fresh graduate starting an exciting new role, I was chasing some big dreams. I wanted to give work my all and make a huge impact on my company from the get-go. I believed that these professional goals would validate all the hard work I had done throughout college and would set me up on a path to achieving my dream career. In a way, I was chasing my own personal Northern Lights–a lifelong dream that I thought would guide my future personal and professional development. However, just like with my trip to Alaska, I soon came to find out that the unexpected twists and turns are what made this year so impactful for me.
When I first started working, I struggled to make a strong distinction between work time and me time. Especially since I was working entirely from home, the lines between work time and me time started to blend together very closely. As a self-taught developer, I felt that I had to learn quite a bit on the job in order to keep up with my coworkers, many of whom had strong computer science backgrounds. That meant I spent a lot of time learning and doing tutorials to get myself up to speed at work — which added lots of time to my daily work routine. As a result, meals were eaten at my desk in between calls and I would frequently log into work for a few hours in the evening. I would feel compelled to complete my work as quickly as my more experienced coworkers while still learning the ropes of my job. All of this time added up and I found it difficult to acclimate to a new city and environment while still balancing my work life.
My team, like many others in software and consulting, used the AGILE method to complete our work. Through this method, tasks are sectioned off into 2-week “sprints”. Our team met bi-weekly to decide which tasks would be included in the next sprint. Then, developers would choose which tasks they could take on in the sprint and estimate how long it would take them to complete these tasks. Once a task was done, it had to be tested and integrated into our main code base. Every 10 weeks there would be a larger meeting to divulge tasks for the next set of sprints and discuss feedback from the last few weeks.
While I soon started to lose faith in my ability to make a strong impact on my workplace, my team and manager were quite understanding of my situation. With their help, I soon came to learn how to tailor the AGILE method to my needs; as my manager explained, I should choose estimates for how long work would take for ME rather than how long it might take my coworkers to complete that same task. In doing so, I found out that I could allocate some time for learning within each task I took on.
In the short run, that meant I took on fewer tasks than my coworkers; however, I was able to feel more confident in my ability to complete tasks correctly and more efficiently while becoming more comfortable in my role. In the long run, this increased confidence in my work was vital; as I completed more work, I found that I needed to spend less time learning new things just to keep up with my coworkers. Ultimately, this meant that I had more control over the time I spent at work–and this helped me to get back on track to achieving my professional goals.
As a first lesson, I would advise anyone taking on a new role to be very candid about their needs and capabilities.
As a new employee, you will likely have big dreams of working hard and making an immediate impact at your company. However, it is in your best interest to take your time to truly learn and become comfortable with your work before taking on more responsibilities. From my experience, I have found that managers are very understanding of this situation–because, in the long run, the time you take learning on the job will make you a better employee.
With my newfound free time, I decided to explore new hobbies and interests.
To step out of my comfort zone, I decided to take up bouldering. I found a new gym that just opened up near me and took a visit there one day after work. Since I had never climbed before, I enrolled in an intro class and started hitting the walls. More accurately, I started hitting the floor. If you’ve ever climbed before, you’ll know that the first lesson is actually learning to fall safely. After that lesson, I started bravely taking on new walls — or “problems”, as they are called in the climbing community. After the first day, I definitely had quite a few bumps and scratches — but nonetheless, I had found a new hobby I truly enjoyed.
One aspect of bouldering I didn’t anticipate was the community.
My gym — although very young — had a strong sense of camaraderie, and I soon learned that climbing is very much a group activity. In my first few sessions, fellow climbers would cheer me on as I traversed new problems. As I progressed, more experienced climbers would give tips and training on how to solve tougher problems. With each progressive climbing session, I began to feel a sense of belonging. I made friends at the climbing gym. In addition, having a hobby to go to after work helped me build a strong routine and further contributed to creating a healthy work-life balance; after work, I knew it was time to go to the gym and try some new problems.
My second piece of advice to anyone trying new things is to explore your hobbies and interests.
Both my climbing experiences and my trip to Alaska have reaffirmed this advice for me. Indeed, on my trip to Alaska, even though we didn’t end up seeing the Northern lights, it was the other experiences — going dogsledding, visiting a hot spring, and taking in the scenery — that made the trip worth it. In a time when much of your day may be spent working, it is great to have a healthy outlet to spend your time. In addition, these hobbies can be a great way to meet people outside of work — which can be challenging especially when working entirely remotely. Even though these hobbies and interests might not be directly related to your overarching life goals, they are still definitely worthwhile to explore as a young professional.
In addition to climbing, I reconnected with a lifelong interest of mine: traveling. Working remotely gave me and my friends the chance to take trips even during the work week to places that would have been very difficult otherwise. This mindset is what drove my friends and me to go to Alaska in the first place. After Alaska, I was fortunate to be able to travel all across the United States: I went to Nashville, Vermont, and DC, just to name a few. I even went abroad with my family to Iceland! Throughout these trips, I continued meeting new people and reflecting on my journey so far–and I can honestly say these trips were some of the highlights of the past year for me.
Throughout this time, I held onto my goal of expanding my biotech network.
Given the remote nature of the world today, I had the opportunity to connect with individuals not just in the NYC area, but all across the world as well. I scoured LinkedIn and my school’s alumni page to find people with all sorts of biotech backgrounds who might be interested in chatting. I conducted dozens of “informational interviews” in which I would ask these individuals about their experiences working in the biotech industry. I met with folks at startups, large biotech companies, consulting firms, and in finance — and all of them gave me advice on how to position myself for success throughout my career. Many of them discussed the importance of grad school. Others were able to connect me with their peers and other people they thought I could get helpful perspectives from. Given all this information, I was able to greatly expand my biotech-related network, and I have no doubt this network will help guide me toward my dream career in the future.
My third piece of advice to new graduates is to keep expanding your network, especially in your field of interest.
Throughout my time conducting informational interviews, I was genuinely surprised and inspired by the number of people willing to take time out of their day to chat with me. Especially given how connected and online the world is today, it is very easy to reach out to professionals in any field you’re interested in; while not everyone will initially respond to you, those who do are genuinely interested in helping you out and can give great advice that may just lead you to the next step on your journey. Just as the electrons that cause the Northern lights themselves are propelled by electromagnetic waves till they cause the shimmering of the Aurora, you too can be propelled towards success by the network of professionals in your field–both near and far away.
In my case, these informational interviews I conducted reaffirmed my interest in grad school.
In my last article, I had been considering returning to school after spending some time working. The interviews I conducted helped me determine the sort of program I wanted to pursue. Although I strongly considered applying to Ph.D. programs, I ultimately came to realize that I’d like to apply myself to scaling and commercializing new biotech innovations rather than directly researching or developing them–and this goal meant I’d be better off pursuing a Master’s degree rather than a Ph.D.
After making this decision, I spent time researching programs that I thought would directly help me achieve my career goal. I found programs that emphasized the connection between the production of biotechnology and the challenges involved in scaling it. I narrowed down my list of schools and programs to areas with strong biotech communities that I thought would ultimately help me achieve my long-term goals: namely Boston, the Research Triangle Area, and the Bay Area. With my schools and program choices set in stone, I spent the last part of 2021 and early 2022 applying for grad schools.
While the application process for grad school can look very different for you based on what kinds of programs you’re applying to, I would advise anyone interested in applying to any sort of grad school to find a program that genuinely excites them at a school they’d love to be at.
If you’re able to find a “good fit” school and program for yourself, it is much easier to write application essays and stay motivated to meet your goals and deadlines. I’d also advise you to talk to alumni of the programs you’re interested in — if they’re in a career or position you’re interested in the long term, these alumni can shed lots of insight into whether a particular graduate program is right for you. And lastly, I’d advise you to start on your applications early–you’ve probably heard this before, but deadlines do approach quickly.
As a result of my application process, I’ve chosen to attend UCSF/UC Berkeley for their joint Master’s in Translational Medicine program starting this fall! In my view, this program presented the perfect blend of leadership/management, bioengineering, and biotech development that I wanted. I am very excited to be living in the Bay Area with access to alumni networks, biotech incubators, and so much more. Here, I’d like to continue building on my work as an undergraduate, as well as over this past year, in an effort to pursue my long-term career goal of scaling and expanding biotechnology domestically and abroad. I am truly excited about what this upcoming year holds and I cannot wait to embark on this next step in my career journey!
Before I start school though, I’d like to reflect on this last year of my life.
Much like my trip to Alaska, this year has been quite unexpected. On my trip, I chased the Northern lights and witnessed incredible nature and attractions instead. Similarly, when I first started work, I was chasing some lofty dreams; as such, I certainly did not expect to get into new hobbies, travel to so many places, and meet so many people. However, I am so grateful to have had such amazing opportunities over the last year. Indeed, if this past year has taught me anything, it is that big dreams are definitely worth chasing–but it is the unexpected twists and turns that make everything worth it. To be quite honest, I have been humbled by these unanticipated events. I know that I won’t be able to predict much of what will happen to me in this upcoming year — but I am extremely excited to continue chasing my dreams and enjoying the unpredictable twists and turns that come along the way.
Connect with me on LinkedIn or feel free to reach out @varunpatel1027@gmail.com if you’d like to chat. I’m also happy to grab coffee anywhere in the Bay!
